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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5391864" data-attributes="member: 54877">I've sometimes wondered if a bit of mechanical support for "increasing power brings increasing difficulties," wouldn't help here? Not that it would solve every issue, but might make some of the issues easier to manage. And I actually see this emerging in late heroic to early paragon. I've had no experience with 4E epic tier yet, but from what I read in this topic and elsewhere, I have no reason to expect that it wouldn't apply. Anyway, a mechanic that would work should probably involve some kind of negative feedback from increasing power. Consider the older versions of Runequest, with increasing Size and Power making the character much more capable, but having more difficulties hiding, sneaking, etc--only on a more widespread basis. Think of that as something tied to character level, only with a more metaphysical scope. For example, assume that character (and monster and magic item and spell) level directly correlates with how easy it is for other beings of similar power to know where you are, what you did, what you touched, etc. By the time you hit 30th level, every other being of 30th level or greater, can nearly always determine what you've done, if they care to spend some modest effort looking.  This has an effect, not unlike the "polite society" portrayed in the American Western. Everyone is armed, and everyone is prepared to use it, if you get snotty enough. So "killing Orcus" is terribly rude--and rude is the last thing you want to be. No, it's not enough to sneak in and kill him. You've got to make him "draw" first. You've got to make him give you cause, and in a way that everyone else knows about (and will bother to look).  Now, in the mythology (and similar stories) that I've enjoyed, this is seldom explicit. About the closest I can think to making it explicit is some of the Roger Zelazny stories. ("Lord of Light" is a particuarly good example.) But the above is often the tone. It's rather assumed that beings don't want to make a move because it leaves them open to threats from a dozen other beings that are watching.  So then what happens is that beings spend a lot of time trying to find ways to circumvent this fact of "relative power omniscience". They hire agents of significantly lesser power, often indirectly. They try to come up with ways to block discovery. They arrange for "threats" to present themselves to get their opponents to make a move first. And all the while, they meet in appropriately epic locations for social gatherings, where they all make catty comments to each other and watch for reactions. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /> The gods, of course, are distinct from merely powerful beings because they have developed effective ways to get around "relative power omniscience."</blockquote>

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